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13 December 2013

Fleecing the membership

Update: The Suntimes is reporting the Shields is now in full CYA mode - lobbing grenades at former, and current, board members claiming that they "fixed" the previous contracts. I say Bullshit on this one! Wag The Dog at its worst.
What say ye?
We FOP Lodge 7 members can agree on one thing: Mike Shields sucks.

He makes over $200,000 per year. For some perspective, in 2010 we contributed $1.6 million in dues to the FOP and what did we get for our dues money?

Utter incompetence, malfeasance, skullduggery and a president with the leadership skills of a toddler.

Rope A Dope

Let's all get up to speed on Shields's Greatest Misses:

1. The "Letter of Intent" - Shields forgot to submit a formal letter of intent to either cancel the previous contract and start from scratch, or notify the city that the last contract would just be amended during the next round of negotiations. He missed the deadline to terminate the last contract. What this effectively means is that our Retro check will be delayed; most likely for at least one year. If the city really wants to get down and dirty, they could rationalize cancelling the Retro payment by simply saying a) "we are broke and cannot pay it." b) the union failed in its fiduciary duty to properly advise the negotiating parties and thereby inherently abrogated the previous contract. If they get a sympathetic arbitrator, that could happen. Is it likely? No. But for Shields to expose us to this is indefensible. Even though Shields proffered a public apology to the rank and file, it still looks as if it could be a $20 million dollar mistake.Each one of you could lose up to $2,000 in retroactive pay.

The city attorney has already informally discussed the issue with FOP reps and said,"The Chief City Negotiator is laughing. The FOP has no idea how Rahm is salivating about taking down the biggest union in the city. Rahm's going to punish the FOP like you've never seen."

What the city will do (most like) is this - No retro for the first year. They will frontload the next contract with a 4% raise the first year, then 1% - 1% - 1% for the next. That way they'll save millions on not paying the first year's payment to the membership.

2. Shields also missed a deadline to file an unfair labor practice over the above mentioned issue.

3. The Sun Times reported that Shields is on the company payroll for one of Rahm Emmanuel's biggest campaign contributors. Conflict of interest, anyone?

When I started working for Mike Shields I instantly noticed his lack of organization, lack of attention to detail, he had no attention span, no dedication to work, no ability to make decisions, let alone follow up with any action. He was unfocused, immature and appeared to be self-absorbed.

Bentivenga's letter simply confirms what many of us have heard via the rumor mill for years about what's going on inside the FOP.

5.In the last meeting Shields removed Bill Dougherty; unceremoniously dumping him back to a beat car. The reason? Because Dougherty and a majority of the board decided to bring Shields up on lodge charges.

The charges brought are:

1) Inattention to duty,

2) Failure to perform and execute the duties of the office of president and

3) Lying to the FOP Membership

Both Dougherty and Aguilar stood up at the last meeting and called Shields a "liar".
Keep in mind that Bill Dougherty handles the medical cases for hundreds of members. Some of these members are waiting for resolution to their cases because they're in "no pay" status, want to return to duty, or are waiting for movement on their cases before the medical board. With Bill not in his FOP role anymore, no one is addressing those medical cases.

When Shields was charged, the charter states that a committee must be appointed by the president to investigate the charged member. Shields was asked to recuse himself because he is the one charged. Shields refused and appointed his buddies to the committee and, of course, Shields was found "not guilty."
When Dougherty was dumped 90% of members voted to reinstate him for the good of the lodge but Shields refused to comply with the reinstatement, so now Shields is being charged again for "failure to perform the duties of the president."

Hope For Change

Well now we have an officer from district 003 who has taken the bull by the horns and wants to do something about it. From the district fax machine came these little gems:

I salute Officer Quarles for doing this but this is not the right tactic at this time. It is like pissing in the wind.
It won't do any good because since the president is elected, it takes an election to oust him. Shields won't resign because he's too stubborn and narcissistic. He can't be forced to resign - but he can be impeached. But with 4 months left to go til the election, and with us in contract negotiations, this would be a terrible time to get an impeachment hearing going.

A high ranking FOP State Rep was also at the last FOP meeting and he was overheard saying [regarding the Shields fiascos], "this is the most disorganized train wreck I've ever seen. It's frankly embarrassing."

2014 is Critical

Apathy is our biggest enemy. In the last election only 33% of active members voted. A greater percentage of the 8,000 retirees voted and they put a large number of retirees in office. This isn't good because the retirees have different priorities than the active guys and gals.
We must get as many active members to mail in their ballot! It doesn't matter what team you vote for - just vote! Next year I have seen who's going to be running and I am going to support our CityWide Team with all my might because I think they can get the job done.

We have very serious issues to confront next year, not the least is ObamaCare. I have already heard that the city is going to cancel the medical portion of our contract and throw every city employee into a healthcare exchange. They already tried to do that with retiress and we are next.

The city only cares about saving money, not about the health and safety of its first responders. Moving us to ObamaCare would probably save the city about $1 billion in costs.
The time is NOW to start getting Shields, and his rump swabs, out of our beloved FOP Lodge 7. Spread the word, and get informed. Ask questions of the guys and gals that come to your district. Get involved; attend FOP meetings.
Your future depends on it.

14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Who else is running against Shields? How can we make reforms so that the President isn't making 200K a year. I think the President should make an extra %20 of his current salary. This way, no one gets into the job just for the money.

Yea ok, the citywide team, are you serious. May I remind you that prior to Bill and Rich becoming all of a sudden shocked and calling Shields a liar they were telling everyone within earshot that the letter was just semantics on words, lawyer mumbo jumbo.

So yeah I don't think I'll be supporting citywide or better yet il be telling every one I know NOT to vote for them. Dougherty and Co. Have been there for 12 -15 years and are COMPLACENT.

I can see the beef with Mike. I have to agree with all of your points with that. This is the stinger for me though. The rest of the board is just as inept as Mike. The board's move to oust Mike is a political play to bring back the Nolan/Donahue/Bella/DiMaria Team of old. The same Team that got political appointments after they "retired". Where Nolan? Where's Donahue? Where's Bella? All these sell outs are sitting pretty collecting a nice pension and collecting another check from the same douchebags they sold us out to.

I've done it before and if I have to I will do it again. We need another bargaining unit.I don't care who threatens my family and how many piss tests I have to do. I say decertify the FOP and shake up the snow globe. The law and rules to follow are here. http://www.state.il.us/ilrb/index.asp Who has a pair of balls left to oust every single one of these ass wipes?

The only guy that can save us is officer Dave Tull on 3rd watch in 025. The guy oozes class and intelligence. He threatened to take Shields out Chicago Outfit style one night at a bar. Shields escaped through a rear door and ran down an alleyway before Tull could clip him though.

Mike is done. Everyone knows that his chances of winning are very slim. Let's focus on the other candidates, and their teams.

FOP has other candidates for President of Angelo, Dougherity, and McDonough, thus far. All are interesting candidates. I support Dougherty given his vast experience. He is so smart. He speaks well. He is an exceptional leader. His robust ability to deal with the membership is unchallenged. Plus, Dougherty will keep me in my lobbyist position! Thanks Bill!

Every single board member passed along the lie that Shields told us regarding the letter. The reason we passed along the lie is because Mike Shields was the only one that knew it was a lie and we thought we were passing along the truth. No one ever dreamed that the President of our lodge would spread such a lie that could possibly be so harmful to the membership. Well time has a way of revealing the truth and now we will all suffer because of his incompetence. It should be noted that he still has some loyal followers on the board who have joined themselves at the hip with Shields so when they hit the water they will sink much faster.

Shields wasn't much of a cop, isn't much as a man, and a total embarrassment as FOP President. He and his retarded brother should be exiled. I voted for Bella because I've known him nearly my entire 28 years on the job. He was the real police, was never a bullshitter, and wasn't in bed with the city or anyone else. He helped many police officers while serving the FOP and the thanks he received was our membership voting in a cast member from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.

So let me get this straight,the union president can get impeached for fucking up retro and hurling false allegations of corruption but the attorney who is just as responsible on both fronts is still employed?

WTF does Geiger need to do to get fired. Anyone who supports Geiger must be voted out of office.

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